


Lost Boys

by beautifulterriblequeen



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Friends to Enemies, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Sad, Timeskips, Tissue Warning, did i mention the angst, fathers and sons, friendship gone wrong, young Harrow, young runaan, your feedback is a gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 18:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulterriblequeen/pseuds/beautifulterriblequeen
Summary: When your library is full of the same destiny stories, it's hard to write a different one.





	Lost Boys

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TDP big bang.  
Art by @random-fandom-ramble on tumblr.

Runaan’s toes had gone numb, but he kept walking through the shin-deep snow anyway. He was sure he was close to camp—he could smell the cedars—but the falling whiteness had obscured his original tracks hours ago. He wasn’t even sure which way was north anymore. Surely—_please, Moon_—this was the right copse of cedars. The last three hadn’t been.

“Hello?”

Runaan’s little boots stopped short. That voice was no Moonshadow. His mind had wandered far ahead, hoping for shelter and warmth, and he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings.

He shifted his bright turquoise eyes toward the small voice, moving nothing else, as if his white winter clothing might make him turn invisible even without a full Moon.

A young boy about his height stood twenty feet away, peering around a slender fir tree, his arms wrapped around its crusty, snow-dusted bark. His face was dark against the white ruff of fur on the hood of his coat, which was gray and finely made, and his knitted mittens blazed scarlet against the black-and-white of the trees and snow.

Runaan tensed and sucked in an icy breath that burned its way down his throat. Gray and scarlet. The colors of Katolis. A _human_. Reflexively, the young Moonshadow tugged on his thick leather hood, making sure his ears and horns were covered.

“Do you know the way to the Banther Lodge?” The boy’s voice tried to be brave, but a thread of fear ran through it. “I… got lost.”

Runaan blinked in surprise, but a small, warm tendril of connection flared in his chest. It couldn’t be so bad to be lost in enemy territory if the enemy got lost in his own backyard. But this little boy didn’t look aggressive. He looked worried. And cold.

The boy rubbed his hands together for warmth. Runaan studied the gesture of vulnerability. His father had trained such behavior out of him two years ago. It had been a hard lesson to learn. But his father had been—was_ still_—determined to make his son the best Moonshadow in the family. And Runaan would never do anything to threaten his family’s honor. Which meant that, right now, Runaan needed to act as human as possible, to keep the boy’s suspicions at bay. _What would a human do in this situation?_

“I can climb a tree and look for you,” he offered.

The look on the boy’s face was pathetically grateful. Runaan figured he didn’t even know how to climb trees. Or maybe he was afraid of slipping on the snow. The young elf scanned the area, full of several firs and a few bare oaks, and picked the fir with the lowest branches. He trudged through the snow toward it, making obvious tracks like any human would, then he hopped up and scrambled through the fragrant branches. He reached the top in no time and looked out across the snowy landscape. The snow was falling thickly, and he couldn’t see far in any direction. But the gentle curves of the nearby hills gave him the lay of the land, and a cut through the woods indicated the humans’ road, which led directly to the lodge and crossed the river next to it.

He knew where he was. He knew which way the Banther Lodge lay. More importantly, he knew where his own camp sat. A grin split his face, and he looked down through the tree branches.

The young boy gazed up at him from beneath the shelter of the tree. Runaan shimmied down and dropped into the thin layer of snow that had reached the ground beneath the tree’s sheltering limbs. In the quiet, surrounded by winter’s frozen fall, they faced each other closely for the first time. The dim shelter of the tree limbs hooded them in peaceable silence.

Runaan silently raised a hand and pointed in the direction of the lodge.

The boy grinned, exposing a gap-toothed smile. “Thanks.” His dark eyes shifted from Runaan’s turquoise gaze to his nose—its blue stripes—and back up again.

“Do you live there?” Runaan asked, hoping to head off the human’s next question. “The lodge.”

The boy shrugged one shoulder of his fine wool coat. “We stay here in winter.”

Runaan nodded. Moonshadows didn’t always live in the same place, either.

“My grandfather is the king.” The boy’s tone was proud, and his chin lifted as he spoke.

Runaan’s thin white eyebrows shot up. Was he supposed to compete with this young prince for status somehow? Human rules were very strange. “My father works for a king,” he offered, hoping that was the right thing to say.

It was not. The boy’s pleasant face closed down. “Which one? Are you from Evenere?”

Runaan’s lip curled at the very idea. “No.”

“Then who are you? Why are you here on my grandfather’s property on the Eve of the Winter’s Turn?”

This one, Runaan knew. His father had made him practice. “My parents are tinkers from eastern Del Bar. Our wagon broke a ways up the road. I’m just… exploring… while my father fixes it. We’ll be on our way soon.”

“Del Bar? That’s all right, then. The King of Evenere is—well, my grandfather calls him a handful. He calls me that, too, when I’m being naughty.”

Runaan blinked. “A handful of what?”

The boy laughed as if he’d said something truly funny. “Trouble, usually. But Grandfather says that, come spring, things will change.”

“You won’t be a handful of trouble in the spring?”

Again with the laugh, clear and easy. _Arrogance masks ignorance_, Runaan’s father always said. “He wasn’t talking about me. I’d better go. Thank you for your help.” The boy held out one of his bright red mittens to shake hands. “My name is Prince Harrow.”

Runaan stared at the scarlet mitten and the line of knitted stags that danced across its back. Slowly, he reached out and clasped the young prince’s hand with his own leather mitten. “Runaan.”

“Thank you again, Runaan. You’ve saved me.”

Harrow’s words shivered uncomfortably against Runaan’s spine. He didn’t know exactly what his father and the others had come to Katolis to do, but humans were the enemy, and not generally to be saved from things. “From what?”

“My father would’ve been furious if he’d had to send the guards out after me. He’s in a foul enough mood as it is, with Grandfather being sick.”

Runaan gulped and tried to smile. He knew all about the foul moods of fathers. “Then I’m glad I could help.”

Harrow took two steps toward the edge of the fir’s sheltering limbs and turned back. “You’ll be okay out here, won’t you? You know the way back to your family’s wagon?”

Runaan pointed toward the road, nearly the opposite direction from the Moonshadow camp. It seemed to satisfy the prince, who waved a friendly goodbye and stepped out into the falling snow.

Runaan watched him go until the prince vanished past a thicket. Then he dashed toward the Moonshadow camp. Not twenty minutes later, he puffed into the center of six pale tents with silver-gray markings, each sheltered under a tree at the edge of a small clearing.

“Runaan.” His father’s voice was low and taut.

Runaan’s heartbeat jumped. His absence had been noticed. He stood as tall as he could and faced his father’s lanky frame, holding his little chin high and meeting those dark teal eyes without any outward sign of fear. “Yes, Father.”

His father had other things on his mind besides his son’s winter wanderings, though. “You will stay in camp tonight. If none of us return by sunrise, make your way home without us. Your mother will understand.”

Runaan studied his father’s stern face with a small frown. His glance strayed to the other Moonshadows as they sat just inside their open tents, dressed in heavy white rabbit fur and preparing various items for the work they would carry out. “Is this a test?”

A smile flickered once at the corner of his father’s mouth.

Runaan hooded his eyes, hiding his feelings. An old habit even at his young age. _Everything’s a test when it comes from you. But I won’t fail._

***

As the first rays of dawn crept through the window of the chambers belonging to the King of Katolis, they fell across his slack face and lit in his unseeing eyes. A crystalline smear of a poison common to Evenere was found on the rim of the glass beside his bed.

The whole household mourned the king’s passing for seven days. Then Harrow’s father performed the burial rites and accepted the Crown of the Uneven Towers upon his brow.

Spring came. But Harrow was wrong—nothing changed. The new King of Katolis redoubled his realm’s war efforts, and all of the human kingdoms shook with battle cries for the next three years.

***

Prince Harrow woke suddenly as if he could sense a watching presence. He rolled over, scrubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, and squinted up toward his open window. Its shutters lay open and its sill was drenched in moonlight.

Drenched, that is, except for the figure that crouched on it, casting a deep shadow. Its turquoise eyes glowed faintly, and a pair of slender, curling horns arose from its head. The moonlight illuminated a pair of dark green boots and side tails of soft white hair.

The figure stared down at Harrow, motionless, unblinking.

Harrow felt a grin spread across his face, and his chest lightened with amazement. He propped himself up on one elbow. “I knew it,” he whispered. “I _knew_ you were real.” His gaze rested on the other boy’s horns. “And… you’re an _elf_.”

Runaan’s voice was soft, just another shadow in the night. “All my life.”

The prince’s dark eyes narrowed. “_You_ said your parents were tinkers from Del Bar.”

“You can’t prove they’re not.”

Harrow began to splutter indignantly because yes he _could_, but then he spotted the shadow of a grin on his visitor’s face. It triggered a parade of fairy tales that flitted through Harrow’s mind. Unlike most of the stories the servant children grew up with, the ones his grandmother told him painted elves as pranksters, but never evil. “You lied to me, you trickster.”

The lithe elfling on the prince’s window sill tilted his horns with curiosity. He didn’t protest either the accusation or the label. “Do you want to play?”

A tingle of excitement that had nothing to do with the cold shivered down Harrow’s spine. He pulled his heavy blankets back and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. The chill bite of wintry air nipped at his toes. “Let me get my boots.”

Harrow threw on trousers, gloves, and a new scarlet coat as well. The young elf helped the warmly dressed prince clamber out onto the sloped roof of the Banther Lodge and up to the sharp ridge. Though the snow lay thick on the ground, the dark slate roof was snow-free after several sunny days. Despite the easy footing, Harrow nearly slipped twice in his big boots, but Runaan easily caught him both times without a word.

They sat straddling the ridge and gazed out over their tiny, snowy kingdom. Harrow decided not to ask about the blue stripes on the elfling’s nose. Runaan’s hair had grown longer, Harrow thought, or perhaps it only seemed that way since the elf wasn’t wearing a hood. A single turquoise bead glimmered on a thin braid tucked back into Runaan’s ponytail, giving him an air of glamor and adventure. Harrow wondered if Runaan’s life had been full of it since they’d last met. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“Why not? I know where you live.”

Harrow leaned forward. “It’s been _three years_. That’s a long time.”

Runaan raised a puzzled white eyebrow. “Is it?”

“Yes. My father’s war just ended last month.” Harrow gestured toward Evenere with a mittened hand. “We won, by the way.”

The elfling turned his gaze to the snowy fields that surrounded the lodge. “Congratulations. Maybe we shouldn’t play down there tonight. They’ll wonder why your footprints are everywhere.”

“Mine _and_ yours.”

Runaan’s grin was bright and cocky. “No.”

Harrow squared his shoulders, determined not to be useless. “What can we play on the roof then?” His question puffed out into the chill air.

“We always play elves and humans back home,” Runaan offered. “I’ve never played it with a real human before.”

Harrow squinted with mild suspicion. “We have that game, too. How’s it go when you play it?”

Runaan’s grin was back, cockier than ever. “Like you’d expect.”

With an eye trained by three years of military tactics and philosophy, Harrow studied the young elf’s slender, athletic legs, encased in only a thin layer of dark fabric despite the deep chill. His arms were bare, too, and he wore neither hat nor hood. When Harrow played elves and humans, it always ended with his side’s victory, too, but he didn’t think he could manage it against such a superior force. “I don’t think I want to play that right now.”

Runaan shrugged easily. “Well, what do you want to do, then?”

Harrow looked down the steep slope of the roof to the ground thirty feet below. “Let’s be explorers. You can climb all the peaks, and I’ll draw all the maps and carry our supplies.”

“That’s fun for you? Carrying supplies?” Runaan eyed Harrow, who nodded equably. “All right, then. And if we need human troops, you can tell me how many and what kind.”

Harrow snorted. “‘Human’ troops? As if I’d allow _elven_ troops to guard me.”

The elfling’s slender horns tipped to the side. “They’d do a better job.”

“They would not.”

Runaan’s giggle was soft and sure. “I got onto your window sill, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you’re no elven soldier. And you don’t want to hurt me.” Harrow glanced down again. It was a long way to the snow, but more than two feet of it would cushion his fall. He’d probably survive. If he didn’t have a dagger in his back. “Do you?”

Runaan’s turquoise eyes gleamed in shadow for a long moment before he replied, “Of course not. Let’s go be explorers.”

The boys played under the moonlight for hours, exploring every peak of the roof with dedicated imagination. Harrow woke exhausted the next morning, yelled at his tutor during his history lesson, and ordered the four troops assigned to guard him to perform marching maneuvers in the snow for miles around. Eventually, his mother lost patience with him and sent him to his room straight after supper, where he promptly fell asleep, smirking on his pillow.

Harrow woke at moonrise to see Runaan crouching over him. “I told you it would work,” the Moonshadow whispered.

Harrow grinned up at him with mischief dancing in his eyes. “Let me get my boots.”

Runaan helped Harrow scamper down to the ground by guiding his feet just so along the lodge’s sills and eaves. Freed from the roof, they dashed off into the silent, snowy night, hiding their footprints in the trails that Harrow’s guards had stitched across the moonlit landscape. They played for hours, climbing, racing, and building snowmen. Runaan insisted his was a snowelf, though, and gave it stick horns. Harrow got a snowball in the face when he stole one of the stick horns, but he gave as good as he got, leaving Runaan blinking in shock through a layer of snow and sending Harrow into fits of giggles.

Runaan helped Harrow clamber back in through his window just before dawn. As Harrow shucked off his heavy scarlet coat, Runaan pulled a small snowball from his pocket and pelted the prince with it. It caught him in the chest, soaked his nightshirt, and sent him into protesting splutters. Runaan smirked and held a finger to his lips before whispering, “See you tomorrow night, human.”

Every night for ten nights, the Moonshadow elf woke the prince, and they’d run through the forest and build snow forts together. Runaan never accepted Harrow’s invitation to sneak around the Banther Lodge on the inside, though. So on the tenth night, Harrow tugged off his snowy coat and said, “Wait here. I have something for you.” Then he slipped out his door and closed it behind him.

Runaan perched on the window sill, ready to flee at the first sign of soldiers. But after a minute, Harrow returned with a carved wooden box and set it on the little table right below the window. The elfling’s eyes widened at the sight of the leaf on its curved lid. “Where did you get that?”

“It’s my grandmother’s. Just some old box. I’m not supposed to take it out of the game room, so please don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Runaan hesitated, as if Harrow asked a great and heavy boon of him. His eyes lifted from the box to Harrow’s face and studied him seriously. Finally he said, “I promise.”

Harrow grinned and lifted the lid, not letting Runaan peek inside, and pulled out a silvery old key. He held it up like a talisman and proclaimed, “I, Prince Harrow of Katolis, hereby give you, Runaan of the Moonshadow elves, permission to enter my room. And the rest of the lodge if you want to, but you don’t have to.” He held out the key.

Runaan accepted it slowly and turned it over in his fingers. “What does it unlock?”

Harrow shrugged. “No idea. There’s like, six dozen useless keys in here.”

Runaan stared at him, perplexed. “Humans are so weird.”

“Yes, we really are.”

They both broke into quiet giggles.

The next night, the moon was new. Harrow waited for Runaan to summon him out into the snow, but the elfling never came. When Harrow woke at dawn, disappointed, he looked out at his window sill and spotted something that hadn’t been there the night before.

A length of soft white braid bearing a turquoise bead lay atop last night’s freshly fallen snow.

***

Runaan trekked home alone through the snow and placed the key in his father’s expectant hand. “He gave it to me freely.”

His father lifted his chin in a rare gesture of pleased pride. “Well done, Runaan. What does it unlock?”

Runaan’s turquoise eyes glittered. “His trust.”

***

“You didn’t say goodbye.”

Runaan blinked down at Harrow from his perch on the prince’s window sill. “Should I have?”

“It’s considered polite.”

Runaan tipped his horns and considered the prince. The human’s hair was longer now, and set in braids. The shape of his face had changed a little, too. But his eager green eyes were still the same. “If you say so. Do you want to play?”

“It’s been a whole year, Runaan.”

“Yes. We have the same seasons in Xadia that you do.”

Harrow snorted. “Do you still have the key I gave you?”

Runaan pulled Harrow’s gift out from under his shirt, where he kept it on a slender leather cord. “Did you keep my braid?”

Harrow’s eyes flickered to a small keepsake box next to his oil lamp. “Yeah.”

Runaan’s turquoise eyes lingered on the box for a moment before returning to Harrow’s face. “Do you want to play?”

The intervening year vanished from the reflection in Harrow’s dark eyes so cohesively that Runaan saw it leave, saw the very moment the young prince let him back into his life. Harrow grinned, threw back his thick coverlet, and leaped out of bed. “Let me get my boots.”

The boys played atop the roof that night, exploring new territory—to Runaan, anyway, for he asked Harrow to name all the peaks and valleys the rooftop represented, and he even coaxed a hand-drawn map out of him. Harrow drew it by moonlight, and it vanished into Runaan’s tunic. The next morning, Harrow ordered his personal guard to march all over the grounds again. The next night, the pair dashed silently into the forest and played to their hearts’ content. Monstrous foes of bark and snow were vanquished, dragons slain, and princes and princesses rescued from danger.

Runaan shared some of his moonberry juice with Harrow when the prince’s stomach growled so loud that it scared away the mouse they were stalking, and when Harrow could barely keep his eyes open, he led the tired prince stumblingly back to the lodge. Harrow shucked off his snow-packed boots and his new, longer wool coat, and fell exhaustedly against his pillow.

Runaan hesitated a moment, then he slipped in through the window and tucked the prince under his covers. “See you tomorrow, Harrow.”

“You promise?” Harrow’s murmur was nearly incomprehensible.

“I promise.”

Runaan woke the prince every night for two weeks. And then he was gone, vanished across the snow again.

Once home and dry, he handed his father the map Harrow had drawn and recited a list of tactical details he’d gleaned from the young prince’s chatter.

His father studied the map for a long moment. “Well done, Runaan.”

The praise and accompanying rare smile did nothing to ease the cramp in Runaan’s belly. He’d kept the secret of Harrow’s Earthblood box for a whole year. Told himself a promise to a human was no promise at all, and that he’d pretend to learn it this year, to present his father with the information like a prize. But on the snowy journey home, Runaan couldn’t stop thinking about the human’s kindness, his earnest heart.

Harrow had kept Runaan’s braid. Hadn’t told anyone about it for a whole year. He’d passed Runaan’s simple test of trust. Shouldn’t Runaan show the same loyalty he’d hoped for from Harrow? Wasn’t that what friendship was based on? Wasn’t that worth something? What was his word truly worth, if he gave it knowing in his heart that it was worthless?

Runaan curled up to sleep on his first night home and swore he’d never tell his father about Harrow’s mysterious Earthblood box.

***

“Do you want to play?”

“Let me get my boots.”

The snow was scant that year. Runaan taught Harrow how to shoot a Moonshadow bow. Harrow could barely draw it at first, and he pretended that the problem lay with trying to shoot an elven bow with five-fingered hands. Runaan teasingly offered to cut his pinkies off for him.

Harrow finally convinced Runaan to sneak around the Banther Lodge’s rafters with him. They listened in on the grownups discussing late-night political matters. Harrow tried to twirl fly wings down into their steaming mugs from up above. Runaan was first to land one in the king’s mug.

“Do you want to play?”

“Let me get my boots.”

The extreme cold had splintered dozens of trees in the forest the week before, so Runaan convinced Harrow to play on the frozen river under the moonlight. They built a snow fort and pelted each other with snowballs. Runaan’s missiles found Harrow more often, but whenever Harrow hurled a snowball that Runaan knew would land, Runaan learned to scramble for safety. Then, just when Harrow thought he’d won, Runaan shifted into his full Moonshadow form, darted across the open ice unseen, and tackled Harrow into a snowbank.

Harrow beat Runaan in a midnight bread-eating contest. Easily. Runaan tried his best, but he just couldn’t get used to the baked goods’ strange texture. Harrow jokingly consoled him with a jelly tart, and Runaan ate the whole thing just to spite him.

“Do you want to play?”

“Let me get my boots.”

The boys’ voices had begun to change. In solidarity, they said very little as they roamed the forest. As the first night ended, Harrow darted across the river bridge toward the lodge. But Runaan paused reluctantly on the forest side, hoping to draw Harrow back for more play. Both unwilling to speak, they stared at each other impatiently until Runaan finally stalked across after him. On stormy nights, they passed their time in Harrow’s room. Runaan perched on the chest at the foot of the prince’s bed and practiced his balance. Harrow wrapped himself in his blankets and drank hot cocoa. Runaan told Harrow about the Moonstone Path. And Harrow kept that to himself.

The fifth year that Runaan sneaked onto Harrow’s window sill, everything changed.

***

“Do you want to play?”

“Runaan, we’re not children anymore.”

The lanky Moonshadow tilted his horns in confusion. “What do you want to do, then?”

Harrow looked up at him from his pillow. He hadn’t done more than open his eyes at the sound of Runaan’s voice. “Let’s just talk. You want to come in? I have something exciting to tell you!”

Runaan automatically scanned the interior for threats and found none. He knew from previous years that the king and queen slept on the other side of the lodge, and that the rooms nearest to Harrow’s were for servants or daytime activities, but after years of his father’s lessons, the young Moonshadow took little for granted. He slipped a booted foot over the sill and entered the prince’s bedchamber, feeling out of place.

“Sit,” Harrow invited as he sat up himself, indicating the foot of his bed. “But close the shutters. Not all of us dance in the freezing moonlight all night long.”

“I don’t dance in the moonlight.” Runaan pulled the shutters across the window. He didn’t like the trapped feeling the action gave him, but he trusted Harrow. So he sat cross-legged on the foot of the prince’s broad, fluffy bed and rested his hands in his lap.

“You did that one time,” Harrow said with a chuckle. “Hands behind your back, parading in a circle. What did you call it? A rune henge procession?”

“Moonhenge progression,” Runaan corrected. “And I only showed you because _you_ wanted to see what Moonshadow dancing looked like.”

“Just for comparison purposes. It’s a lot like the rondel I had to learn for last High Solstice. Anyway. I wanted to tell you that I’ve started attending university.”

Runaan’s ears drooped. “Does that mean you won’t come to the lodge anymore?”

Harrow only chuckled. “Of course it doesn’t. You always visit me during Low Solstice anyway. My family is always at the Banther Lodge at this time of year. That won’t change. But that’s not the thing I wanted to tell you.”

“Oh. What is it, then?”

“I met someone.”

The glee in Harrow’s voice made Runaan curious. “A girl?”

“No, a boy.”

Runaan’s white brows rose. “Wait, you like boys, too?”

Harrow blinked. “What? No, he’s just really interesting. Like you!” Harrow’s warm green eyes twinkled with excitement. “His name is Viren, and he’s a stable boy at the university. I met him when he started filling in for my usual horse groom. Silly man broke his ankle falling down stairs. Who does that?”

Runaan had a suspicion about what had really happened—humans would do almost anything to get closer to power—but he kept it to himself.

“And he’s so bright and clever,” Harrow rambled on, barely pausing for breath. “If he could afford the university, I know he’d be one of its best students. I’m actually thinking of sponsoring him next semester so he can attend classes with me. I’ve already arranged for him to have the most exclusive private tutor in Katolis. Whenever Viren shows—”

“Why are you telling me this?” Runaan interrupted. The slow swirl of emotions that had begun as Harrow began talking had whirled faster and harder until he had to say something. He’d spent years befriending this silly young prince. Years planning what to do with him every winter, crafting the illusion of a perfect, harmless elven friend. Until this year. This winter. His father had given him new orders—the final step that made sense of all these years of work. Runaan had soberly agreed to his mission, though deep down, he’d been troubled and uncertain. And now, Harrow seemed to have no interest in their shared history. Runaan’s chest cramped with hurt.

_That’ll make this easier. I think I can do it after all. _His fingers brushed the dagger he’d sheathed inside the top cuff of his boot.

“I’m getting to that,” Harrow assured him, waving his hands animatedly. “Like I was saying before you so _rudely_ interrupted me, Viren likes to show me what he’s learning from his tutor.”

Runaan’s brows drew together. “I thought you said he’s a stable boy, not a student.”

“Would you _listen_?” Harrow huffed impatiently and shot Runaan a short glare. “He’s _not_ a student at the university. He’s studying independently. For now. And see—this is why he reminds me of you—he’s learning to do _magic_!”

Runaan froze, his spine tingling with sudden sharp stabs. “That’s _impossible_.”

“Hah, I knew you’d say that!” Harrow showed no remorse or concern for his horrific statement. The only expression that danced in his eyes was excitement. “Humans can do magic too, Runaan! Dark magic is our birthright, it’s our heritage, and Viren’s showing me all kinds of ways to use it. It’s amazing, it’s—it’s—”

“It’s disgusting.” Runaan’s voice was cold. His fingers slipped inside his boot cuff.

Harrow gave him an exasperated look. “It’s a few grasshoppers. No one’s going to miss them.”

Runaan’s stomach clenched and roiled. _All these years, I kept carefully away from the subject of dark magic. I didn’t want to push him away. And now, he knows nothing. Nothing at all!_ Runaan’s first fear raised its ugly head again, sending a cold spike through his guts. _What if humans chop me up for spell parts, one piece at a time? What if I die screaming under the hands of someone who doesn’t see me as anything more than a walking collection of supplies? Humans really are monsters after all._

“You’re upset,” Harrow added.

Runaan realized he hadn’t replied in far too long.

_I am. I am very upset._

Runaan’s mind fled back to the moment his father pressed a new dagger into his hands, its green sheath decorated with a coiling serpent symbol. “What’s this for?” Runaan had asked.

“It’s time you knew the true extent of your mission, Runaan.” His father folded his hands behind his back and stared down at him, gray eyes sharp. “You’ve befriended the prince. You’ve brought years’ worth of useful details back to us. But there is a larger picture here. The human kingdoms are barbarous, and if they ever make peace and unite, they will turn their eyes to Xadia. We are kept safe when they are in turmoil. Assassinating the old King of Katolis provided three years’ worth of protection for Xadia. Your mission has been to encourage a more permanent state of war. The assassination of the Crown Prince of Katolis at the hands of Del Bar has been calculated to provide Xadia with the longest respite from human attention.”

Runaan’s fingers stilled around the dagger’s handle. The image of Harrow smiling at him in the snowy night flickered across his memory. “What are you saying, Father?”

“I’m saying, you are to return with the _terrible_ news that Prince Harrow has perished. With this dagger in his heart.”

Runaan couldn’t lift his eyes from the weapon in his hands. Its pull was too strong. “But… he’s my friend.”

“And you are my son. You’re fifteen now. Next year you will take your place among the Moonshadow assassin recruits, Runaan. It will give you an edge on the others if you have already taken. The harder blade gets drawn more often from its sheath.”

Unshed tears edged Runaan’s turquoise eyes._ I don’t want to kill Harrow. Please don’t make me._

But what had come out of his mouth was the ever-obedient “Yes, Father.”

Sitting on the end of Harrow’s bed, Runaan could almost feel the weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder. His fingers slid further around the Del Bar dagger’s handle.

“Runaan? Come on, talk to me.” Harrow leaned forward and waved a hand in front of Runaan’s eyes. “I only paid Viren any attention because I already knew you. You told me so many stories about Xadia and its magic. You made me want to see your homeland. It’s only natural that I’d want to learn more about magic—”

“There’s nothing _natural_ about it!” Runaan snapped. “You know _nothing_, Harrow, and your ignorance is going to ruin lives. Starting with your own. Stay away from Viren. And stay away from _me_.” Runaan spun to his feet, feeling the façade over his true feelings splinter. All the hurt, fear, and guilt he’d been soothing himself to sleep with for years burst out in one single, controlled action.

The Del Bar dagger embedded itself in Harrow’s headboard, a mere inch from the prince’s ear.

Harrow’s eyes went as wide as Runaan had ever seen them. To his credit, the prince sat very still and didn’t even flinch. And though the prince’s body had halted, his mind was clearly racing, because the first thing he said, when he finally did speak, was, “Did you kill my grandfather?”

Runaan’s eyes tightened. “I was _seven. _What kind of monster do you think I am?”

Harrow’s gaze didn’t waver. “Your parents, then. You lied to me about them the day we met. They weren’t tinkers. They’re assassins. Like _you_. My grandfather died the night after I met you. That’s why you were here that day.”

Runaan bunched his jaw. He hadn’t known what his father’s mission had been that day. He’d felt terrible for months afterward. But Harrow was in no mood to hear about Runaan’s childish ignorance or regrets now. “I’m not an assassin.”

With the towering arrogance that only a human prince could muster, Harrow slid his eyes ever so slowly to the side until he stared directly at the handle of Runaan’s Del Bar dagger. Then he flicked his dark gaze back to Runaan’s turquoise eyes. “_Really_.”

Frozen by his own uncertainty in his flight toward the freedom of the shuttered window, Runaan had never felt so overexposed in his life. His past and his present collided and shattered, and Harrow could see far too much of his soul. Secrets he barely understood himself had just come spilling out of him.

He had no idea what to do, and all he could think was, _Father will kill me for this._

“I’m confused,” Harrow said coolly. “Are you storming out or trying to kill me? Because you can’t seem to decide. Maybe you’re not an assassin after all. You don’t seem to understand how it works.”

“I… I just…”

Fragments continued to fall from the shattered armor around Runaan’s heart. He’d known Harrow for more than half his life, and though trust came slowly to Moonshadows, Runaan had absolutely trusted this human. _Had_ trusted, but no longer.

No one had told him how much the breaking of trust would _hurt_. It stabbed deep and coiled through him like a poison, leaving green and black afterimages against his vision. It stole his breath and froze his guts. Its insidious black hand squeezed his throat from the inside, making him heave for air, forcing him to stare into Harrow’s eyes.

But the prince wasn’t a hardened liar. His face softened, and he leaned forward. “Runaan, you just don’t understand. You have magic. You’ve had it every day of your life. I’ll never know what that’s like. But Viren does. And he just wants to learn—”

“To kill. He wants to learn to _kill_, Harrow.” Runaan flung an open hand between them, desperate to make the prince see, to make him understand—

Harrow sighed slowly. He kept his eyes on Runaan’s, but he tipped his head and once again indicated the dagger Runaan had just hurled at him.

_To learn to kill._

Runaan’s argument ground to a halt. He couldn’t drag his gaze from that dagger, couldn’t think of a single thing to say, except “I’m not like him.”

Harrow’s voice was quiet. “Everything you accuse him of, you do yourself, Runaan.”

Runaan would have to tell him. He’d have to tell him, and Harrow wouldn’t believe him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Do you know the secret to dark magic, Harrow?” he began.

But Harrow cut him off. “Yes. It’s a shortcut. And literally anyone can use it. We don’t need to be born an elf, all special and blessed, like you.”

Harrow’s innate pride had picked exactly the wrong moment to raise its head, and Runaan’s temper snapped. “You utter fool, elves are no different than grasshoppers in the eyes of dark magic!” Runaan growled.

“That doesn’t even make any—listen to me.” Harrow scooted forward to the edge of his bed and gave Runaan a direct look. “Viren would never hurt any elf, no matter what. I guarantee it. So quit being worried over something that’s never going to happen. He’s pro-Katolis. That’s not the same thing as being anti-Xadia.”

_Yes it is. _The final shards of Runaan’s heart crumbled and fell. He couldn’t stand to be in the room with this stubborn prince for another breath. “I’ll leave you to your new friend’s care, then.” He ripped open the shutters and leaped onto the sill, but he pivoted back as the icy winter air struck him.

His braid lay in Harrow’s keepsake box. White Moonshadow hair with a turquoise bead. The Del Bar dagger lay buried deep into Harrow’s headboard. And Harrow, still breathing, able to explain the true significance of both. If Runaan let Harrow live, not only could the prince blame the Moonshadow for an assassination attempt, but with dark magic, he could make sure that Runaan was personally tracked down and killed for it.

_This is why Father didn’t tell me my real mission until just before I left. He knows how soft I am. That if I messed up, the only way to set things right would be to kill Harrow anyway._

Harrow tensed on the edge of his bed. By the look in his eyes, the same idea had occurred to him, too. Runaan met his eyes guardedly. He glanced at the Del Bar dagger, then back at Harrow.

Runaan could reach it first.

Harrow knew it, too.

“Is that what you want?” Harrow asked softly. His fingers knotted in the sheet, and his toes curled from against the icy draft that poured in the window. “Runaan, do you really want to kill me?”

The soft hurt in Harrow’s voice nearly shredded Runaan’s already broken heart. “No,” he choked out. “No, I don’t.”

Harrow’s shoulders slumped, and he leaned his elbows onto his knees. His braids fell forward and obscured his expression. “Then here’s what we’ll do. You’ll go, and I’ll let you. I don’t think I can ask you to trust me anymore—your Moonshadow sensibilities wouldn’t let you, would they? But stay nearby. Somewhere safe. And watch me. We’re the lost boys remember? Lost _together_.”

Runaan stared down into the prince’s face for a long moment, caught in the window, between two worlds. One world where he trusted his unique childhood friend. Where they could run off and play in the moonlit forest every winter for a lifetime, never growing up, never growing apart. And another world where his father had been right all along.

_Humans are liars._

Runaan turned his eyes to the snowscape that spread before him under a layer of broken clouds. The pattern of moon and shadow appeared chaotic from where he perched, but if only he were perched a little higher up, he’d be able to see the pattern spread across the land.

_Never trust what you see. Trust what you feel. Trust the Moon. Not the human._

“Goodbye, Harrow.” Runaan leaned forward, letting gravity pull him off the sill and onto the roof.

“Will I ever see you again, Runaan?”

Runaan hesitated. He turned his head partway back toward Harrow and said, “You’d better hope not. I am my father’s son.”

From a sturdy branch in a towering cedar tree just within hearing distance of the lodge, Runaan watched as morning brought a bustle of activity outside. Troops formed up. Harrow stalked outside and mounted his horse, outfitted in light armor. He stood in his stirrups and addressed his father’s men. “Last night, an assassin attempted to take my life, right here on these grounds.”

The troops murmured angrily.

Runaan tensed.

Harrow produced the dagger. “Del Bar may or may not have actually sent an assassin after me. But someone wants us to think they did.”

Runaan’s eyes went hard. His fingers dug into the branch he held for balance.

“Our enemies are indeed under our very noses. We must all stay vigilant. I want this man found. He fled northwest. If we’re fast enough, we can catch him and ask him who sent him.”

The mounted troops thundered off after Prince Harrow, leaving Runaan a clear escape toward Xadia.

Runaan stared after Harrow for a long time. He squared his shoulders and took the eastern path without a backward look.

***

Runaan had no prize to give his father when he arrived home. “You have your war,” he said as he stalked past the older elf.

His father paused in the doorway and observed Runaan’s angry packing. “Ready for another mission so soon?” he asked wryly.

Runaan whirled, turquoise eyes blazing, and lifted his chin. “I’m joining the academy. Not next year. Now.”

Runaan’s father held his gaze for a very long time, sieving his very soul. But Runaan’s soul held no fear, nor guilt. Only anger. And he let it show. His eyes sparked, his chest heaved. His hands balled into fists at his sides.

Infuriatingly, his father let one corner of his mouth pull into a smile. “Well done, Runaan.”

***

When Harrow entered his chamber, he brought the smells of high summer with him. Corn and apricots, tall grass, fresh cool streams. Yet he moved like a man twice his age, as if his body was gripped with an icy chill colder than the winter that was supposed to be swirling outside. The winter that still existed across the border in Xadia. He never noticed Runaan lurking in the shadows atop his wardrobe.

Runaan had spent years bracing for a sudden attack from Viren’s magic, or Harrow’s troops, following the magic Runaan had foolishly left with Harrow in the form of his childhood braid. But seeing Harrow now, he began to question his fears. Some quiet instinct deep in Runaan’s heart, under the thrumming rage and the decade-old pain, told him to wait. To watch.

Harrow’s steps were slow as he shed his formal coat and dropped it carelessly across a trunk near the wardrobe. They slowed further as he turned toward the bed on the dais.

Then they stopped, just shy of the first step. The King of Katolis covered his face in his hands, his shoulders drawn tight like a bowstring.

Runaan pivoted in a crouch, ready to raise his bow, his arrow nocked but not drawn. He knew what Harrow had done. Knew what it had cost. Runaan had come anyway.

“You were right, Sarai,” Harrow murmured into his hands. “I did want to build a better world. But this wasn’t the way.” He rubbed his cheeks as if massaging life back into his face and addressed the empty bed. “It was too easy. And far too hard. I thought the price of saving two kingdoms was cheap. But it was way too high. If I had known…” A groan of deepest anguish filled him and radiated into the silent room as if he were made of regret given form. “If I had only known…”

Before his childhood friend could lose himself in grief, Runaan leaped lightly from the top of the wardrobe and stalked closer, his arrow half-drawn. The message he’d come to deliver didn’t require words, but Harrow clearly hadn’t learned anything since they’d met last. _And look what it’s done to you_. “You’re missing her point, Harrow.”

Harrow spun to face Runaan with wide eyes, drawing a dagger from his belt. “R-Runaan?” The dagger’s gleaming tip trembled in the moonlight.

The assassin paused and let himself be seen. Taller than Harrow, whip-thin, and dressed for the shadows, Runaan was a deadly breath on the wind: a brief warmth on the skin, here then gone, leaving nothing but cold death in his wake. “Your queen. She was trying to tell you something important. You didn’t listen.”

Harrow’s eyes were still wide with shock at Runaan’s sudden appearance. His dagger shivered harder. “Are-are you here to kill me?”

Runaan’s face was hard. “Yes.”

Harrow’s eyes lowered to Runaan’s bow, still pointed at the floor. He gulped and looked up into Runaan’s eyes again. “I understand.” He lowered his dagger and stood tall, lifting his chin. Accepting his fate.

A dirty glee slicked across Runaan’s rage, and he tipped his horns mockingly. “You acknowledge your arrogance?” he murmured.

Harrow’s accepting pose bowed back into defensiveness. “My—? No. I acknowledge that I willingly invaded Xadia to save a hundred thousand lives from an agonizing and drawn-out death. I acknowledge that my military solution carried a secondary risk: you.”

“You knew I’d come?”

Harrow took a deep breath. “Not you specifically. But Xadia is well defended. And I have first-hand knowledge of the skills of Moonshadow assassins. Your kind killed my grandfather to spark a war. You came to kill me to spark another.”

Runaan pointedly glanced toward a large map clearly marked with Katolis’s recently expanded borders. “You started that war yourself.”

“I made a military feint to let you walk free. Pardon my softness, _assassin_. It so happened that I did find traitors among my men. _My_ war was justified. Yours never has been.” Harrow’s brows lowered. “Is that why you’ve come? To start another war for your precious political schemes?”

Runaan hesitated so long before replying that Harrow actually took a step back from the angry elf. “I’m here for _me_, Harrow,” Runaan finally said. “I’m here because you didn’t _listen_. To me, or to your wife. I _warned_ you about Viren. You didn’t believe me. And you’ve learned nothing.”

“It was _one monster_, Runaan. For a hundred thousand lives. You’d have done the same. You’re standing right there because you’ve already _decided_ to do the same. Haven’t you?”

The accusation caught Runaan by surprise. “That’s not what—”

Harrow went on the attack, eyes flaring with pain and hurt. “Isn’t it? How _dare_ you come into my life, at the lowest moment I have ever suffered, and tell me to my face that _I deserved this_, while you stand there ready to make the same ‘mistake’ I did? _How dare you_.”

Runaan’s fingers slipped on his bowstring, and he took a step back at the harsh truth in Harrow’s words. He’d become an assassin. His father’s son. He’d killed for Xadia, repeatedly. But Xadia hadn’t sent him after Harrow. He’d come of his own accord. Out of fury. Out of guilt. “You don’t know what you’ve done, Harrow. What you’ve started. Your arrogance reaches much further than you think.”

Harrow’s eyes narrowed, eager for any emotion that wasn’t sorrow. He waved an angry hand, inviting Runaan to explain, if he could. “And how is that, exactly?”

Upset on too many levels to resist, Runaan obliged. “I never thought I’d hear of you again, once I walked away from you that night. But I was wrong. You had the towering presumptuousness to assume that you could strut across the border and take what you wanted. That you could commit murder on foreign soil and simply walk away. But your actions have consequences, Harrow! The King of the Dragons is furious. He’s forming the Dragon Guard to defend against further foolishness like yours. My sister—” Runaan bit off the rest of his words.

At that very moment, his sister, Cloda, and her husband were preparing to say goodbye to their little daughter, Rayla. They’d answered the call to serve the King of the Dragons as elite members of his newly formed Dragon Guard.

The only way to quit the Dragon Guard was to die. And with the way the slumbering war with the humans had suddenly rumbled to life again, Runaan and Cloda both knew how her term of service would end.

Cloda knew all about Runaan’s connection to Harrow. Her Moonshadow sensibilities had forced her to choose between salvaging her brother’s honor and raising her daughter. And she’d chosen Runaan. Runaan and Xadia.

Runaan owed her. And he owed Rayla. In fact, he’d never _stop_ owing Rayla. His soft heart—_soft head, more like_—had led to disaster within his own family and torn his sister from her only child. What else could he do _but_ promise Cloda that he’d look after her daughter while she looked after his honor?

What else could he do?

Runaan’s face was a mask of pain, but he drew his brows down. _Justice will not be denied._

“Your sister,” Harrow pressed. “My wife. Your Dragon King. My people. You. Me. We all pay prices, Runaan. One way or another.”

Runaan lifted his arrow from the bow and swiped it through the air in a negative gesture. “But not like this, Harrow! _Never_ like this.”

Harrow folded his arms and glared at Runaan accusingly. “Says the _assassin_ who’s come to _kill_ me for my crimes against Xadia.”

Runaan stalked closer in a rush of angry shoulders and hot breath. “I’m not here for Xadia. I’m here for _me_. This is my fault. You’re my fault. Everything you did after I let you live… That’s on me. And I’m here to make things right.”

“‘Make things right’?” Harrow shoved himself into the inch of space that separated his chest from Runaan’s. His dark green eyes stabbed up into the assassin’s bright blue ones. “Make things _right_? Don’t stand there and tell me that marrying Sarai was wrong. That raising her son alongside our own was _wrong_. That leading my people toward a more equal future than the one my father envisioned is _wrong_. That wanting everyone across two kingdoms to live happily and healthily is _wrong_. Don’t you _dare_ judge my life from your high and mighty position as a blessed elf, gifted at birth with powers none of my people will ever have.

“You want to talk about _arrogance_, Runaan? Let’s talk about how your father killed my grandfather. Let’s talk about how he sent you to kill me. Let’s talk about how _you said yes_ to that. Let’s talk about how I kept your secret from that day forward. How I kept _all_ your secrets, including the Moonstone Path. Because I’m _not_ trying to go to war with Xadia. I’m _not_ trying to invade you and take what I want. And let’s talk about how, the next time I finally see you, you don’t acknowledge that I’ve never given you away, not _once_. No, you come in here trying to make up for what you see as _weakness_. You come in here telling yourself that you’ll finally be the good son your father always wanted once you make up for your failure all those years ago and _kill me_!” Harrow slapped his hands against his own chest and held them open wide, inviting Runaan’s death blow.

But Runaan only stared at him. His bow lowered, and his mouth slowly fell open. “You have children?”

Harrow threw his dagger across the floor and lunged, shoving Runaan back with both hands.

Runaan took the blow and skidded smoothly to a stop several feet away. His eyes flickered across Harrow as if seeing him for the first time. “Harrow—”

“You heard me, you disgraceful excuse for an elf. You utter _embarrassment_. You _unworthy son_. Kill me!” Harrow dug his fingers into Runaan’s tunic and slammed him back against the wardrobe.

Runaan dropped his arrow and clasped Harrow’s wrist, not to remove, but to contain. “Harrow. Stop.”

But Harrow didn’t seem to hear him. He slammed Runaan against the wardrobe again, though more softly. His face crumpled, his hands knotted in Runaan’s tunic, and under his breath Runaan heard him muttering over and over, “Kill me, just kill me.”

Harrow’s shoulders knotted, and his grief overcame his ability to stand. His knees gave out, and he sank toward the floor. Runaan smoothly leaned his bow against the wardrobe and dropped with him, hands on his shoulders, guiding him down, until they knelt together on the stone tiles. The king’s grief radiated against Runaan like a dark sun, and the thick weight of it shredded Runaan’s single-minded rage.

Harrow’s head dipped forward, shaking with sobs, and rested against Runaan’s chest. “She’s gone, she’s… I miss her _so much_.”

Runaan sat back onto his heels and rested his arm across Harrow’s shoulders, feeling the heavy tremors of the king’s utter grief. How easy it would be to kill him now. How easy to destroy him, too—to tell him he deserved this. But Runaan only murmured, “I’m sorry, Harrow. I’m so sorry.”

The assassin who’d come to kill the king held him instead as he wept for the death of his queen. When Harrow’s sobs finally subsided, Runaan handed him a soft cloth, and Harrow wiped his eyes and blew his nose. They knelt facing each other, full of too much emotion and too few words.

Uncharacteristically, Runaan spoke first. “You’re right. And Sarai was right. It’s not my place to come here and take your life. So I won’t. You… you have children.” Rayla’s face blossomed in his vision, smiling up at him for approval, her tiny, dark horns nudging their way out of her short white hair, her lavender eyes alight. “And I have—my own responsibilities.”

Harrow raised his eyebrows, too tired to fight anymore. “You found someone, then.”

Runaan dipped his horns to the side. “I have someone to take care of.”

Harrow’s gaze shifted toward the door to his chambers. “So do I. I’ll try to do better. They deserve that from me. For Sarai’s sake.”

“All your people deserve that from you. Come, you need to rest.” Runaan flexed to his feet. He could have taken up his bow, or simply struck out with his hands. But he did neither, offering an empty hand to Harrow instead.

After a moment, the king took it and let the assassin pull him up. Runaan rested a hand on Harrow’s shoulder and guided him up to the dais. He drew back the embroidered blankets on the bed and tucked Harrow in, just as he had done once when they were children. His shadow fell over the grieving king, and Harrow rolled onto his side and hugged Sarai’s pillow.

“Thank you, Runaan,” Harrow mumbled, as the exhaustion of the bereaved began to claim him. “For your mercy.”

Runaan studied Harrow, curled against the hurts of the day, exhausted by the toll of his own choices. He’d known Harrow well, once. Should have trusted him more than he had. Though he wasn’t sure that letting the king live with this crushing grief counted as mercy, he replied, “I’ve owed you a debt for years. Today I consider it repaid.” After a breath, Runaan laid a hand on Harrow’s shoulder. “Don’t make me ask you about Viren again.”

“Viren?” Harrow’s voice was cloudy with sleep.

Runaan’s voice was a breath of shadowy judgement. “Sarai’s death is his fault.”

Harrow’s eyes slid shut, and he let out a tired breath. “Sarai’s death is _Thunder’s_ fault.”

Runaan’s fingers twitched. Now was no time to borrow trouble. He’d have enough to explain when he got home as it was. He’d traveled all this way, unsanctioned and alone, only to _hesitate_? Runaan’s father would have had a viscerally strong opinion on that kind of behavior if he were still alive to see it. Although, to Runaan, his father’s death was only an insidious illusion. Runaan could hear every word the old assassin would say anyway.

_Everything’s a test._

“Goodbye, Harrow.”

Runaan’s shoulders tensed. Guilt, his oldest friend, dogged his steps as he fetched his bow, retrieved his lost arrow, and vanished into the shadows.

***

Night fell as the six Moonshadow assassins darted through the forest. The storm would be upon them well before dawn, and Katolis Castle was still hours away. Runaan gestured for a break. It would be their last dry one before the rain fell.

Beneath a spreading oak tree, Rayla sauntered over to Runaan, still bouncing with energy and excitement, and grinned up at him. “How am I doing, _Team Leader_?”

Runaan nodded curtly, though he kept his eyes soft. “You’re doing very well. The real test will come later.”

Her violet eyes sparkled with adoration, just as they always had. Runaan would miss that innocent gleam after tonight. He took a deep breath and fixed it in his mind.

His young charge noticed. “Runaan?”

“Yes, Rayla.”

“You’re staring a bit. Is everything all right?”

_No._ “All according to plan. How do you feel?”

Rayla straightened her shoulders and tucked her hands behind her back. “I’m ready, Runaan. You’ve only been training me for this all my life.”

He hid his thoughts behind a tolerant smile. “You’re fifteen, Rayla.”

Rayla shot him a sassy look and tucked her beaded braid behind her right ear. “Yeah, I am. That’s plenty old enough.”

Doubts jostled inside Runaan’s chest. Rayla had demanded a position on his team in order to restore her family’s honor after reports circulated that her parents had fled Avizandum’s lair instead of staying to defend him, the Dragon Queen, and the egg of the Dragon Prince. Her insistence gave Runaan flashbacks to when Cloda had insisted on joining the Dragon Guard after Runaan’s failure to kill Harrow when he was only fifteen. _The cycle is complete. And yet it’s my own failure that put everything in motion._

Runaan steadied his expression. “Fifteen, Rayla. Do you know what I was doing when I was fifteen?”

Rayla rolled her eyes and gestured broadly. “Oh, I don’t know, probably killing every traitor you passed on your way to market?”

Runaan gave her a lightly reprimanding look despite his inner amusement. Despite the weight in his heart. _I was getting my heart broken by a friend who turned to the darkness._

“No, wait, I know,” Rayla continued, wagging a finger at him with broad exaggeration. “You were slaying an evil dragon between running epic marathons around Xadia!”

“Hardly.” _I was learning why an assassin needs to be hard._

Her sass was on a roll, though. “Or, wait, I bet it’s this: you were being wined and dined by the King of the Dragons himself because he wanted you to be his own personal bodyguard!”

He crossed his arms and toughened his expression to sternness. “Rayla. Nobody likes a loud assassin.” _I was learning the lesson I needed, if not the one my father was trying to teach me._

Rayla sighed and let her sass run out. “Yes, Runaan.”

He settled a hand on her shoulder. “And remember.”

“Yes, Runaan?” Rayla used her attentive-pupil voice.

“Moonberry surprise when we get home.”

Her soft white brows shot up. “But it’s not even close to my birthday.”

_I’ll tell myself that it will make up for that gleam I’ll have stolen from your eyes_._ Maybe I’ll even believe it for a breath or two. _“You’ll have earned it. Look at me, cooking twice in one year.” He let a smile cross his lips. “We shouldn’t dally. You lead this time.” With another silent gesture, he gathered everyone’s attention and directed them onward. With pleased surprise, Rayla took point.

She didn’t slow down even when the downpour began.

***

“You will wait here, _quietly_.” Runaan pointed imperiously to the rock, his turquoise eyes sparking. Rayla wouldn’t dare challenge him now, would she? _Please, Rayla. Don’t._

Rayla reluctantly plopped onto the rock, and Runaan felt his shoulders unclench. His right hand went slack with relief, hidden where she couldn’t see it. _She’s hidden, too._ _Away from us, away from camp._

But he knew her stubborn streak well. She wouldn’t stay unless he shamed her into it. Such a sentimental child—she’d found the key Harrow had given him long ago and decided it was a delightfully quirky human treasure, hanging it from her window at home. Runaan hardened his heart and told himself it was just a trinket, after all.

_Focus_. Runaan couldn’t have Rayla lurking around camp if the humans returned. And he couldn’t have her following him, either. All the scenarios he’d been running in his head for the past hour had ended in disaster. There was no escaping that, now. It was all a matter of degrees, a matter of price. And of how many would pay it.

Runaan would do whatever it took to ensure that Rayla didn’t pay it, including paying it for her. Rayla needed this redemption as much as he did, but if he was going to keep her alive, he had to choose for her, between death and dishonor. _I never should have brought her with me._

His left hand tightened harder, and he felt his knuckles pop. “If we’re not back by sunrise…” He turned toward the castle, tightened his right hand back into a fist, and stabbed Rayla with the words that he knew would hurt the most. “_Go home_.”

His ear just caught the soft sound of her hurt sigh. He kept walking until he was out of sight.

Then he began to run.

The castle loomed in the high distance, but Runaan knew the way. Along the river, lurking across the underside of the bridge, around the base of the wall, up the side of an isolated outer tower. Then along the roofs toward the central tower where Harrow’s chamber lay.

Everyone expected the assassins to wait for the cover of darkness. Everyone expected a team of six.

Runaan had never been one to measure up to others’ expectations, for good or ill. He was going to finish what he’d started. Alone.

As he eased his way around the edges of the castle guards’ eyes, he tried to keep his thoughts on the moment, but it was impossible. The roots of this mission ran deep.

The battle against the humans on Winter’s Turn had been a disaster of epic proportions. In the aftermath—the devastating reality of the Dragon King’s demise, and the dawn of a bleak, warlike future that could have been prevented by Runaan’s dagger striking true all those years ago—Runaan had utterly fallen apart, been unable to eat for days. Rayla had been so worried she’d tried to drag him to a healer.

For her kindness, he’d _snapped_ at her.

Things had gone downhill from there. Rayla was beside herself with horror at what her parents had done, and it manifested in a kaleidoscope of emotions that even Runaan couldn’t predict. Runaan’s guilt hadn’t let Rayla fix anything, had driven her to the most extreme solution of them all: demanding to join his assassin team in order to extract justice from Katolis. That same guilt which had held her comforting words at bay had clouded Runaan’s judgment—he’d allowed Rayla to join up.

At any given moment during the mission, Runaan could easily have broken down into hopeless sobs. Everything was coming together—or was it coming apart?—too hard, too dark, too fast. He couldn’t stop it. He could only do his best to complete the mission at hand and keep Rayla safe. He’d never taken a mission so knotted with personal attachment before. It didn’t suit. Runaan functioned much better detached and he knew it. If he kept up this level of inner turmoil, someone was going to get killed.

_Possibly everyone. And that will be on me, too._

_At least I can only fail everyone once._

Runaan slipped around the crenellated crown of Harrow’s tower and timed his descent to the balcony with the turning of the guards’ heads as they scanned out across the castle courtyard for enemies. With practiced ease, Runaan dropped lightly to the smooth stones next to the balcony railing and slipped in through the open doors. He stepped to the side, put his back against the wall, and let his eyes adjust to the dimmer interior.

Memories of the last time he’d stood in this room flooded his mind, and his resolve betrayed him once again. Harrow had cried. And Runaan had let him live. _Why can’t I hate you, Harrow? How much easier it would be if I could._

Harrow sat at his desk across the broad chamber. He pressed a heavy seal against a spill of red wax, stamping a rolled letter with his royal mark. His expression was soft, sad, contemplative. As if he bore the burdens of generations on his shoulders and could press them into that blood-red wax with the weight of his royal seal. Beside him, his sword, blade bare and bright in the last golden rays of a dying afternoon, rested its handle against the table’s edge, while its point gleamed deadly sharp against the tile floor.

A bright green bird of prey perched nearby on an elevated stand. It saw Runaan first and chirruped a soft call. Harrow immediately rose and took up the long, broad-bladed sword, aiming its deadly point toward Runaan’s lurking spot.

“It’s you, isn’t it, Runaan? They finally sent you properly.”

Runaan didn’t answer. Didn’t step forward. He should have shot Harrow by now. He should have killed this faithless human three times over. He’d learned to be hard enough for anything in the past nine years. He’d hardened up over Cloda. His hard heart had given in to Rayla’s demands, too. But the old softness of his youth danced before his eyes. His friend, exploring the roof of the Banther Lodge under a waning moon, grinning mischievously from a snow fort, lurking in the rafters at Runaan’s side.

He could be hard for anything. Anything except this.

Harrow’s sword point lowered. “It’s all right. I understand. You’ve been trying to kill me since we first met, haven’t you? It’s high time I let you finish the job.”

Runaan took one step forward, and the failing light of day backlit his horns. He fitted an arrow on his bowstring and drew it back smoothly. He had drawn that bow a thousand times. But even though his aim was true, his fingers would not loose the missile. One breath, then another, and still he hesitated. “Tell me why. Why you never _listened_ to me.” He gritted his teeth so Harrow wouldn’t hear the tremble in his voice.

Harrow grounded the point of his sword on the tile. “Yours was never the only voice striving for my ear, Runaan.”

Runaan’s eyes slitted. “Is that what you thought I wanted? Your favor? The ear of the king, for what? For the sake of peace?”

Harrow’s face was drawn. His shoulders slumped. “You would have had it, if you’d been honest with me.”

The condemned king’s words struck hard, and Runaan lowered his bow with wide, outraged eyes. “I put my life in your hands every winter.”

“You were grooming me to trust you so you could kill me and start a war, Runaan. That’s not being honest. You of all people should know that.”

Runaan bit back his protests. If he’d truly wanted Harrow to understand, he’d have spoken them years ago. But Runaan’s father had wrapped him in decades of schemes, and Runaan could only cut himself free of the cords he could see. His father’s machinations ran deep.

Just as Viren’s did in Harrow.

Harrow misinterpreted Runaan’s silence and offered an unexpected statement. “You were right, though. All along. I should have listened to you.”

“Your words won’t stop me. They’re about twenty years too late.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to.”

Runaan took a steadying breath and studied Harrow. “This changes nothing. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Harrow reached into a pocket and pulled out a small token, offering it slowly. “I thought it might be you, so…”

Runaan’s eyes dropped to Harrow’s palm and flickered wide.

His boyhood braid draped softly over the king’s hand, its turquoise bead still intact.

Something broke—_shattered_—in Runaan’s chest. Hot magma began to ooze out through his ribs, making it hard to breathe. “You kept it. All these years. You kept it from _him_.”

“Of course. I want you to take it back. They can’t find it on my body after— Afterward. Please. It’s yours, anyway. I’m glad it’s you, Runaan. You’re the only one who would understand.” Harrow stretched his hand a little further toward the assassin, offering the soft token.

Runaan’s heart hammered against his ribs. _It’s a trick, it’s a trick. _

“It’s not a trick,” Harrow said, as if he could read Runaan’s mind. “If you won’t take it back after everything I’ve done, I understand. But for your own safety, destroy it. You know what he’ll do with it if he finds it.”

The utter absurdity of the moment broke over Runaan like a sundering wave. He’d never felt so evil in all his life, nocking an arrow to kill a man who offered him everything he’d ever wanted of him: trust, validation, friendship.

_I’m here to avenge one king by killing another. I’m here for justice. I’m here to kill my oldest friend._

Runaan’s father’s face swam in his mind’s eye. “_What does it unlock?” _

_“His trust. Is this a test? Everything’s a test when it comes from you. But I won’t fail.”_

Harrow broke into Runaan’s spinning thoughts. “Runaan, it’s all right. I accept my fate. It’s what I deserve. So unless we have time for me to get my boots so we can run around on the roof one last time, I suggest you get to the business you came for.”

Heat pricked at the corners of Runaan’s eyes. His side tails swayed as he shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “I’ve tried three times to kill you. I’ve turned my hand away every time. It’s not your destiny to die by my hand, Harrow. You deserve justice for what you’ve done. But not from me.” Runaan dropped his arrow back into its quiver.

Harrow blinked in surprise. “You’re calling off the mission?”

Runaan faded back into the shadows. “No.”

“But… your braid.”

“Burn it.”

Harrow’s hand slowly closed around the soft white braid. He nodded sharply, eyes soft with pain. “I would never have given it to him.”

A muscle in Runaan’s jaw twitched. _No. But you gave him everything else_. “Goodbye, Harrow.”

As Runaan slipped out onto the balcony and began to scale the wall, the sun slipped behind the horizon before him. The moon rose at his back. And the acrid smell of burnt hair reached his nose.

The first and last connection between Runaan and Harrow went up in smoke.

***

The full Moon was rising as Runaan made his way back across the castle battlements to meet his team. Everyone but Rayla—

_Ting_.

His Moonshadow senses told him another elf was nearby. Runaan eased to a sudden stop and looked down over the tower crenellations. A spike of disbelief and fear shot through him.

_Unbelievable. She didn’t stay on that rock four minutes._

While her back was turned, Runaan leaped lightly down to the top of the wall that stretched from his tower to the next and strode up behind her.

“_Rayla_.”

***

Runaan knelt on the cold stone of the dungeon floor, his right boot slowly filling with blood, and felt his left arm start to die. Its rot would take the rest of him soon, if Viren didn’t.

Viren. At long last, Runaan had come face to face with the man who had turned Harrow against him. And found him to be disappointingly human. Just an ordinary man who’d caught the ear of a soft king.

An ordinary man, yes, but one with extraordinary vision. With a heart of righteous greed. With a mind for dark magic.

With a disturbingly familiar magic mirror hidden under a dark cloth.

If Viren could bring down a king with his pragmatism alone, what might he do with that mirror? Runaan had no intention of letting the world find out. For Viren had indeed brought Harrow down. By the time Runaan led his assassins to the king’s chambers, intent on letting one of them take Harrow’s life, Runaan’s childhood friend was no longer as Runaan had left him.

In every way that mattered, Runaan’s mission was a success. In every way that mattered, Runaan was a failure. As he staggered out to the balcony to loose his shadowhawk, sending proof of the kill to the Dragon Queen, he finally understood what Harrow had been saying.

_We’re both dying for what we cannot change. Dying _because_ we cannot change._

A long, hot pang slid through his heart like a deathblow as he leaned into his chains. _Rayla, Rayla, do better than I did. Be better than I am. Don’t get lost._

Hot tears squeezed out and dripped onto the cold stone floor between his knees. _You and I are still wandering the forest, aren’t we, Harrow? Two little lost boys who never found our way home._

Heavy footsteps approached. Runaan sent a hot blue glare toward the door to his cell. The dark mage who had lured his oldest friend away from him, and ruined any chance for peace in the process, had finally come to finish the job. Runaan would make sure of it.

Viren entered, and their eyes met.

_I’ll see you soon, Harrow. I’ll crouch on your sill and ask if you want to play. And you’ll say yes._


End file.
